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Avatar Case Study - Synopsis and Character

By 2154 Earth’s resources have been depleted and a corporation is mining a mineral called unobtainium on the utopian planet of Pandora. Paraplegic former Marine, Jake Scully (played by Sam Worthington) takes his twin brother’s place on a mission, out-posted to Pandora. This is inhabited by the 10 foot, blue native Na’vi, who live in amongst the lush and dense flora and fauna of the forestland. Jake’s mission is to gather intel for the military (led by Colonel Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang) by infiltrating the indigenous natives through the use of an ‘avatar’. In return for this, Quaritch confirms that the corporation will pay to restore Jake’s legs.

An avatar is a Na’vi / human hybrid, who are operated by genetically matched humans; Cameron’s idea is that future technology allows human intelligence to be placed within a remote body. Avatars are used, for narrative purposes, because the air on the planet is poisonous to humans.

Dr. Grace Augustine (played by Signourney Weaver, who mentors Jake as Head of the Avatar Program), Norm (a scientist, played by Joel David Moore) and Jake are posted in the midst of the richest onobtanium in the area.

Jake’s avatar is attacked whilst in the forest, and he is rescued by a female Na’vi, Neytiri (played by Zoe Saldana). He gets initiated into the warrior tribe, and falls in love with her. Meanwhile the Colonel plans to exterminate the Na’vis. This is the catalyst for the soldier’s moral dilemma and the quest of the film - whose side is he on for the battle of Pandora’s fate?

Jake’s Marine background enables him to relate to the Na’vi warriors, and he to them. Sam Worthington was cast, after James Cameron did a worldwide search for an unknown to star as his protagonist. The core reason being to keep costs down. The film in fact only boasts one known star actor; Sigourney Weaver who is known for her portrayal in the classic science fiction Alien trilogy.

Although the film is arguably sci-fi (and the casting of Weaver could secure this), the film has more generic tendencies towards a fantasy film: richly developed exotic world, fantastical creatures, character led, binary opposites and a quest to name a few. It has been cited as a film about binary opposites (imperialism / ecology, modernity / tribalism, war / peace, freedom / colonialism, and spiritualism / merchandised warfare), star crossed lovers (like Titanic) and illustrating the theme of white supremacy / racism. The film has been criticised as anti-American, due to the corporate element. Cameron denies this, but agrees that the humans in Avatar do illustrate the ‘evil’ in some human decisions.

James Cameron

Source: Kevin Ligenfelser

James Cameron is a Canadian film director and writer.

His most popular work includes:

The Terminator (1984)

Aliens (1986)

The Abyss (1989)

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) and

Titanic (1997).

Avatar and Titanic are the two highest grossing films of all time.

His films have recurring films of strong female roles, a strong romance subplot, the relationship between humanity and technology, two worlds merging, anti-military and the fear of suffocation / holding your breath.

Production DevelopmentThe origins of the film date back to the mid-1990s. In 1994, James Cameron wrote an 80 page script for Avatar. Two years later, he said he would make the film using computer generated actors, after filming Titanic. Digital Domain (visual effects and animation company founded by James Cameron, Scott Ross and Stan Winston in 1993, based in LA, USA) came on board and the production was meant to start in 1997, for a 1999 summer release. The main reason this did not happen was because Cameron famously felt that the technology was not ready. He wanted the visual effects to help the narrative and felt that technology needed to catch up. He then concentrated on refining the technology and working on documentaries.

In October 2005, Business Week revealed that 20th Century Fox (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation) had given Cameron $10 million to film a ‘proof-of-concept’ sequence for the film to show the executives.

Between January and April 2006, the director worked on the script for Avatar. This included the culture and language for the Na’vis. Dr. Paul Frommer - who was a linguist at USC - created the 1,000 word vocabulary with Cameron. The research continued with the main stars learning more about their characters and the fictional environment. For example, Sigourney Weaver met with Jodie S. Holt (who is a Professor of Plant Physiology) to understand how botanists sample plants and how organisms, such as those on Pandora, would be discussed in the real world.

Cameron was very keen to explore the design of the residents of Pandora, and went beyond the unusual 3D renders. He worked with fantasy illustrator Wayne Barlow, amongst others, to capture the characters better (see image - for more information please see The Art of Avatar: James Cameron’s Epic Adventure by Abrams Books).

July 2006 saw Cameron announce that Avatar would be released in mid-2008 and that he planned to start principal photography by February the year before. Weta Digital came on as the visual effects studio, and Stan Winston (who had collaborated with Cameron on The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgement Day in the past).

The production design actually took two years, with two different designers looking at two separate areas of the artwork (the environment of Pandora, and the human element).

In 2006 Cameron said that he would be using the Reality Camera System to film Avatar in 3D. These were cameras invented by Cameron in collaboration with the Director of Photography (Vince Page) and Sony. The ‘reality’ was that humans see in 3D and Cameron wanted this experience for the film. In order to capture the ‘stereoscopic vision’, which the human eye can, meant that the camera lenses needed to be just 70m apart. This resulted in the 3D-T camera by Sony, which ‘telescoped’ the images. To further capture vision like us, the cameras were also able to allow the lenses to cross and uncross, just as our eyes do when we track an object. These cameras weighed less that an IMAX camera (19.5lbs compared to 329lbs). For the film, these allowed two HD cameras in a single camera body in order to mimic human depth perception.

20th Century Fox had concerns, mainly due to the delays and costs with Titanic. Cameron responded offering to cut his fee, if the film was a failure. He then decided to shop about, and took initial ‘proof-of-concept’ film to Disney. They tried to take on the project, and then Fox decided to fully commit when Ingenious Media backed the film in October 2006. As a result, 20th Century Fox’s financial side was now less than half of the $237 million budget.

The end of 2006 saw Cameron exciting the media with descriptions of the new “very ambitious sci-fi movie” film being an “old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience” (article).

Production

The principal photography took place in April 2007 in New Zealand and LA, California. It was a 40% / 60% combination of full live action shots and CGI, including motion (or performance) capture and miniatures.

Cameron had been working on motion capture animation for over a year, before December 2006. The motion capture work lasted 31 days. It is now called ‘performance capture’ as the camera ‘captures’ the expressions / performance of the actors, and is able to transmit this data to real time computers. This means that the whole of the actor’s performance, from a raised eye-brow, flaring muscles in the face to a subtle emotion in the eyes, can be transferred to the CGI character. In addition to this, Cameron used different cameras to ensure different angles of the live action / performance capture, so the VFX team had a lot of information and detail to work with. This was pushed to its limits for the climax of the romance, when Jake (as a human) touches the Na’vi, Neytiri. They had to ensure there was appropriate lighting / shade to ensure this combination of CGI and live action looked convincing to the audience.

All the actors were professionally trained to aid their character work, ranging from horse riding to the dialect of Na’vis. The cast were even sent to tropical rain forests in Hawaii, so they could experience the world of Pandora. By using motion capture, Cameron was also able to direct his stars in real time. (He even invited Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg to have a go.) In order to instruct the actors fully, within the 3D CGI backdrop, ‘simulcam’ were used - this combines the 3D camera work with virtual cameras. This meant that the CGI images were superimposed over the live action - very much like real avatars.

Another technological issue was the amount of data which needed storing. Microsoft created Gaia, which is a Digital Asset Manager (DAM which manages tasks like cataloguing, storage and distribution of multi-media productions). To illustrate the amount of data, a ‘server farm’ was

created which was 10,000 sq. foot, and it used 4,000 HP servers. Each minute of the film takes up 17.28 gigs of storage. To ensure that the film was completed on time, George Lucas’ ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) worked with Weta to get the battle scenes completed.

DistributionIt can be hard to find exact figures, but the cost was estimated at somewhere between $280 - $310 million to produce and $150 million for marketing. The New York Times even cited the cost of the film was nearly $500 million.

The production budget costs seem to be recognised as:

$300 million for CGI and principal photography

$200 million for promotion, marketing and distribution

$500 million for total film movie production budget

This meant the film needed to make hundreds of millions to make back its money. Normally when you discuss a film’s budget, the marketing is not included.

For the financial investment of Avatar, Fox worked with both Ingenious Film (as said) and the investor group, Dune Capital Management. This was to hedge the risk of losing money. They also filmed in New Zealand for tax reasons and this saved them $30 million - just by filming a third of the live action footage there.

Also, the expense for the technology is not part of this $280+ budget. Cameron used some of his own money for this, and the cameras were used in other films, including The Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour, and since, in the recent Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

The public hoped that the marketing would be as innovative as the film. The first image of the film was released in August 2009 and film magazine, Empire claimed exclusive images for the October 2009 issue. At the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, 25 minutes of the film were screened in 3D. It was here that Cameron announced that ‘Avatar Day’ would be in the 21st August 2009. This was when the trailer for the film was released for all sites. The Mattel toy merchandise and official Ubisoft videogame trailer were also revealed. Cameron said:

We’re going to do something unprecedented. It’s a social marketing experiment. We’re going to take over as many IMAX 3D theaters, and other selected 3D theaters worldwide, on August 21 and we’re going to let an international global audience come see 15 minutes of Avatar for free. It’s going to be Avatar Day (article).

Several trailers were released with 129 second released online on the 20th August, following in October by a 210 second for theatres and then online. These all gained positive reviews. The teaser was one of the most viewed in the history of film, reaching top position on Apple.com with over four million streams on its first day on the site.

‘Avatar Day’ brought in four main channels for the audience to access the film as an Event Movie:

1. Interactive Trailer : This brought in further interaction with multiple feeds, and the opportunity to access further content. It was made using Adobe AIR and allowed different options for the viewer to purchase tickets

2. Social Media: Avatar’s Facebook had nearly 1.3 million fans, MySpace had almost 80,000 friends and Twitter had over 25,000 followers. It was the most tweeted film in January 2010 and brought in links to the soundtrack. YouTube had 11 million views and Flickr had over 1 million views. See Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr

3. Avatar Official Website : This had the usual images, blogs and wallpaper downloads, but it also had its own Wiki for Pandora called Pandorapedia

4. Cross Marketing: On October 30th, to coincide with the opening of the first 3D cinema in Vietnam, 20th Century Fox allowed Megastar Cinema to screen 16 minutes of the film to the press. Then a trailer was premiered during a Fox screening Dallas Cowboys American football game. This was on one of the world’s largest video screens and was considered to be the world’s largest live trailer viewing, of its time. Fox also promoted it within their shows, like Bones (with Joel David Moore having a recurring part) and Adult Swim (using Zoe Saldana)

The Coca-Cola Company worked with Fox to market the film. The focus of this was the AVTR.com site and Coca-Cola Zero cans and bottles could interact with 3D technology when they held up the soft drinks to a webcam.

Mattel introduced Avatar action figures and there were distributed in McDonald ‘Happy Meals’ in countries including the USA and China.

One issue with the marketing was the fact that “Fox blew it” (article). Fox released the teaser before the screenings of ‘Avatar Day’, but since then Cameron has shown that the controversy itself was good publicity for the film.

It is also interesting that the marketing of the film was mainly done on FREE social networking sites, especially when you consider what the marketing budget was. There was a daily budget of

$18,000 for the Google Adwords marketing and we know that there were huge billboard / TV / radio advertisements to go alongside the more creative approaches to promotion of the film.

ExhibitionAvatar was released to over 14, 000 screens. It is seen as an ‘Event Movie’, which means that the actual release of a film is seen to be a major event in itself. This is normally a film with A list stars, expensive visual effects and a newsworthy budget. Although this film did not have major stars billed in it, James Cameron is a celebrity himself and the reputation of Titanic, plus the ‘introduction’ to 3D, was a huge draw for the public.

It was released on Thursday 17th December 2009. It earned $3,537,000 in the USA and Canada. The initial 3D release was to 2,200 screens. The film earned £26,752,099 on its opening day and $77,025,481 in its opening weekend. This makes it the second largest opening film, after I Am Legend - the highest for a 3D film. The IMAX opening also broke records with 178 theatres earning approximately $9.5 million - this makes 13% of the films domestic gross (at the time) on 3% of the screens. The worldwide gross was $214.6 million in five days. After incredible takings, the film is now 14th on the Box Office List (Box Office Mojo) with the adjusted gross of $772,206,800 after ticket inflation. This is important as ticket prices were higher due to the increased price of 3D tickets. The average price of a 3D ticket was 30% more and some IMAX tickets were $18.50 a go. The IMBD.com figure for its worldwide box office figure (25 November 2011) is $2,782,275,172.

The delayed release date was marketed to mimic Titanic’s release, but there are a few more financial perks as a result of this decision. It enabled theatres to install the relevant 3D technology in their sites. There was a saturated release in the UK, as 503 cinemas screened the film in week one and 485 in week two. This allowed the audience to choose where to see it (more choice of venues) and therefore producing a greater result at the box office. In the USA 90% of the ticket sales were for 3D - illustrating that many wanted to see what the fuss was about, and were happy to pay more for the experience.

Other films on that weekend included:

St. Trinian’s 2 (pre-teen audience)

Where The Wild Things Are (family / fantasy audience)

Cameron said that the audience appeal was those who were aged ‘8-80’. You can see that the core male audience, and those interested in 3D, were easier to attract as a result due to the other films on at that time. With the UK 12a / USA PG-13 certificate, this was a film that families / friends could go to see over the Christmas holiday.

Other films on at the time were:

Nativity!

Law Abiding Citizen

Paranormal Activity

New Moon

2012 (see FilmEdu case study)

Films which competed with Avatar, after its initial release, include:

Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Squeakquel

Sherlock Holmes

Nowhere Boy

Nine months after the film was released, Avatar: Special Edition was then screened at the cinemas again. This was nine minutes longer than the original and added a few fuller scenes (including even more sweeping shots of Pandora, and an intimate scene with Jake and Neytiri. It did not display a new side to the film, but rather gave people another chance to (pay to) see it.

Before the film was released, there were very mixed thoughts on how the 3D production would be received. Some film critics and online communities thought it would be a disappointing return at box office, whilst others saw it as a real game changer (director / actor, Jon Favreau) in cinema. Cameron had obviously experienced the success of his previous films and the worldwide success of Titanic was a clear goal.

The main surprise with Avatar was how the film continued to maintain its box office results for several weeks. One reason for this was the timing of its release. By being released in December, it did not have much competition with the usual weak January films. This had worked for Titanic and it worked for Avatar. Films are not normally released at this time as the Oscar nomination results are announced in late January (and have been since 2004). The fact that the film was 3D was another pull. The marketing of the film was that this was a film that had to be seen in the cinema; it was a film for the audience to judge (rightly or wrongly, but it meant people had to see it) and the novelty factor of wearing 3D glasses (to see if the experience was all it was cracked up to be) had a huge impact on the audience - meaning some went / paid more than once to see it.

In terms of critical reception, the film did well. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 83%, gaining an average of 7.4 / 10 (currently with 282 reviews). Many critics highlighted to similarities it had with other films (mainly Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas), whilst others thought it was the American colonialism theme, or the 3D technology, that pulled in the crowds. Time magazine ranked it as number 10 in their ‘Best Movies of the Decade’.

Despite being nominated for 9 Academy Awards, it won Best Art Direction, Visual Effects and Cinematography. It gained 4 nominations for the 67th Golden Globes and 8 BAFTAs nominations. It seemed to lose out on Best Picture and Best Director awards and instead gained accolades for Special Effects and Production Design.

It is interesting to note that the US release day for DVD and Blue-ray sales was not on a Tuesday, so it could coincide with Earth Day (22nd April 2010). Cameron was keen to raise awareness for environmental issues - and it also added further publicity for the film. The US Blue-ray sales smashed first day launch records with 1.5 million, against The Dark Knight (see FilmEdu case study) which sold 600,000. It then repeated this success in the UK. For more numbers please see this link.

On Christmas Eve 2010, the film had its 3D TV premiere on Sky.

Notes

Officials in China changed the name of a peak in Zhangjiajie to Avatar Hallelujah Mountains

Palestinian protesters dressed as Na’vi to stress their cause

Cameron has discussed creating two sequels to Avatar and has signed a contract with Fox to direct these. He had said that if the film made $41 billion, he would create a trilogy; it made more than $2.7 billion worldwide ( £1.7 billion). These are currently planned to be released in December 2014 and 2015. These will be produced by Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment and with 20th Century Fox. Both Sam Worthington and Zoe Saladana have signed up and Sigourney Weaver confirmed to the BBC that she will return.

Weta and ILM had worked together on previous projects; Contact, Van Helsing and Eragon.

Avatar and 3D

Source: John Shearer / Getty

One of the major industry perks of 3D is the amount is costs to convert a film and how much they can get through increased ticket sales.

It costs on average $30 million to convert a film and they can increase ticket prices to make up this amount.

It is also worth considering the impact of 3D home media, and the future of 3D technology on mobile phones. Equally, a lot of the Pandora flora and fauna already exists and is ready to be reused for the next two films which represents savings for the production team and its budget.

Another positive feature of 3D is that it is harder to copy, therefore deducing video piracy which cost the industry billions every year. Ironically (as of October 2011, Avatar in 2D is the most pirated movie of all time with 21 million illegal downloads (referring to Bit Torrent).

3D technology has been around since the mid-19th Century. In 1844, David Brewster introduced the ‘Stereoscope’ for taking photographs and in 1851 a 3D photo of Queen Victoria was shown at The Great Exhibition. It was four years later when the Kinematoscope (or Stereo Animation Camera) was invented. In 1894 William F. Greene filed a patent for the 3D process using two screens side by side. Unfortunately the audience had to wait, and the first movies were screen in 1922 (The Power of Love, now sadly lost), 1935 (first colour 3D movie), 1947 (first Russian 3D movie - Robinson Crusoe) and the first feature length 3D film, Bwana Devil, hit USA screens in 1952. The 1950s saw the 3D boom of these films before it seemed to go out of fashion. In the 1980s there was another boom with films such as Friday The 13th Part III, Amityville 3D and Jaws 3D. Again there was another lull, before Avatar. We now have a 3D only TV channel, South Korea’s Sky 3D, which launched in 2010, and 3D televisions are now available on the high street.

It is worth mentioning that in 2003 Cameron did create a 3D documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss that was a tour of the Titanic wreckage. It was this that helped to create the basis for his 3D feature film, Avatar.

2009 saw a resurgence of cinema-goers, mainly due to the release of films like Star Trek, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Slumdog Millionaire. The release of Avatar enabled the year to be a blockbuster success, in terms of takings for the UK box office. Digital 3D films took over 10% of the box office stubs, despite being only 3% of the films released.

There is now a post-Avatar 3D debate. Mainly that 3D does not necessarily add anything to a film - for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides 3D. It does however work well in theme parks and some people think this is its natural home. The industry have gone some way to make things better for the audience, with the old red and green paper glasses being replaced with ‘RayBan’ style black plastic glasses. But another reason that 2012 may continue to be less impressed with 3D is that Sony has now announced that the Studios will no longer put up the bill for supplying the glasses in US sites. Tensions have been created with exhibitors as they have already paid for the projection upgrades and converting their screens to 3D. When you understand that the glasses can cost 50% of the theatre ticket, you can see that this is going to have a huge effect on the cinema owners. The idea is that the public will pay separately for the glasses, at the theatre, creating more money for the exhibitors. The issue is that many people now prefer to watch 2D, mainly to the cheaper ticket price. (Fox tried to do this too, but met with firm opposition from its exhibitors).

The script for Avatar was never really going to win many awards, but the technology used would. The combination of the old (3D) with new (performance capture) allowed it to bring a different visual experience for the public. It is argued to have changed cinema (James Dyer from Empire for example), but it has also been criticised as really using the old form of 3D to create an event movie (Mark Kermode, film critic). The arguments either pro or anti-3D seem to be balanced. Directors are voicing their opinions on 3D; Martin Scorsese for with Hugo whereas Christopher Nolan is ‘anti’ and is instead supporting IMAX as the real cinema experience with his exhibition and distribution of the Dark Knight films (see FilmEdu case study). Films also don’t necessarily need to be big budget, like Avatar, as seen with the UK Film Council support for Street Dance 3D. The spectacle is the USP for the film, and it is clear that Avatar was created to push the 3D technology forward. It can be argued that the 3D boom has now plateaued with 40 films being released in 2011, but only three were in the top ten and arguably their success was more that they were sequels. These films also earned less than they did in 2D. It will be interesting to see what happens to both 3D in terms of the industry, and how the sequels to Avatar will affect exhibitors in 2014 and 2015.